TANGUY, Yves. Breton, André.
4to. (290 x 228 mm). [3 bifolia + 20 leaves + 2 inserted leaves: 28 unnumbered leaves]. Half-title, leaf with title in grey with justification verso and 20 leaves of paper in a variety of colours on different paper stock with reproductions of Breton's manuscript recto and verso, each with appliqué label with the relevant date, and nine reproductions of drawings by Tanguy also recto and verso; sheet size: 280 x 220 mm. Loose as issued in original black paper wrappers, black paper-backed blue paper-covered board chemise with title 'VOLIERE' in silver to spine, blue paper-covered board slipcase. The édition de tête of Volière with an original visual poem (or calligramme) by Breton and an original signed drawing by Tanguy. From the edition limited to 250 numbered copies, with this copy from the édition de tête of 22 examples numbered in Roman numerals with a leaf of original signed manuscript by Breton and an original drawing by Tanguy. The text and illustrations - Tanguy's original drawing and Breton's original calligramme aside - reproducing manuscripts by Breton written between 1912 and 1941 illustrated by Tanguy's drawings were produced in facsimile by Daniel Jacomet using his printing process. Breton's visual poem or calligramme (see below) is dated '1957' at head and titled 'l'Art magique' at foot. Breton's book of the same name, 'l'Art magique' was published in the same year by Editions du Club Français du Livre in an edition of 3,500 copies, with a deluxe issue of 126. The original material for the present example is as follows: - original drawing by Tanguy in black ink to a leaf of cream paper (99 x 91 mm) with 'TOP' in pencil presumably at head of leaf and annotated in pencil verso. - leaf of laid paper with printed '1957' at top and with manuscript text by André Breton in brown ink to surround a 7 number by 7 number magic square in blue ink and initialled 'AB' in pencil at lower right (276 x 220 mm); Breton's text is titled '(l'Art magique)' and underlined at the centre foot of the whole.
PICABIA, Francis. Mendes, Murilo.
Small folio. (326 x 260 mm). [24 leaves + 6 leaves (suite); pp. 41, (i)] Half-title, printed title in red and black and Mendes' verse illustrated with 6 monochrome lithographs by Francis Picabia, final leaf with achevé d'imprimer and justification, also included with this copy is the additional suite of lithographs printed in red; the lithographs were printed by Desjobert, Paris. Loose as issued in original publisher's printed wrappers with title to front cover in black, the suite loose in a separate wrapper with title in black and flap, orange paper-covered board chemise with title to spine in black and grey paper-covered board slipcase. A very good unsophisticated copy of the very scarce illustrated book 'Janela do Caos': Francis Picabia illustrating Murilo Mendes. From the edition limited to 220 numbered copies on Auvergne, with this one of 23 hors commerce examples marked 'EXEMPLAIRE / H. C.' with the additional suite of lithographs in red. This remarkable and scarce book, truly international in formation, combines the illustration of Francis Picabia with the verse of the Brazilian Modernist Murilo Mendes and typography by Michel Tapié; the text was printed by Imprimerie Union (Russian emigrés), the lithographs by the Parisian printer Desjobert, directed by the diplomat Roberto Asumpção de Araujo in collaboration with J. Guimarães Rosa and Francette Rio-Branco. Mendes' verse is taken from his collections 'Poesia Liberdade' and 'Mundo Enigma'. ?Apesar do número reduzido de poemas, eles representam o resumo do espírito da poesia muriliana. Ao contemplar as linhas do livro ?Janela do caos? fica nítida a heterogeneidade temática de Murilo Mendes. Observações sobre a sociedade passam quase despercebidas em palavras que inspiram a criação de imagens mentais, o cotidiano vira cenário para discussões filosóficas e existenciais e o surrealismo convida o leitor a acessar as próprias janelas da alma com debates poéticos sobre ordem e loucura ? A união das estéticas visual e verbal que acontece em ?Janela do caos? era um desejo antigo do poeta ? Assim, ao colocar para o leitor figuras reais como olhos, bocas, corpos, rostos, animais e fortes expressões num contexto surreal, criado pelos poemas, as imagens do livro ?Janela do caos?, materializam algumas aspirações do poeta. E refletem, portanto, o contato sensível de ?um grande poeta brasileiro e um grande pintor da escola de Paris?, como disse o jornalista Paulo Mendes Campos, no artigo ?O itinerário de um livro em Paris?.? (Museu de Arte Murilo Mendes). This edition of 'Janela do Caos' is scarce, likely due to the language and the fact the major portion of the edition was sold in Brazil. WorldCat lists copies at the National Library of Australia, the Library of Congress, Indiana and New Mexico only; COPAC lists no copies and neither do the catalogues of the British Library nor the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. We locate an additional copy at MoMA.
PORTER, Louis.
(400 x 125 x 70 mm). Title, Introduction, seven cards detailing subject matters (listed A?Z), a further 390 cards with reproduction photographs; card with colophon at rear. Each card digitally printed in white ink. Loose as issued in original publisher's handmade black drawer. 'Search Engine' by Louis Porter. From the edition limited to 8 copies (plus 2 APs). Search Engine is a series of index cards featuring photographs sourced from the Science & Miscellaneous section of the London Library ? one of the world's largest independent lending libraries. These images are ordered as they were encountered, alphabetically by subject, on shelves that make neighbours of Sleep and Smuggling and that bring together Pleasure, Poaching and Poisons. The result could be seen as an archaeology of the photographic systems of knowledge that we often taken for granted. The subjects listed and illustrated include: Advertising, Aeronautics, Agriculture, Alchemy, Anatomy, Animal Lore, Aquarium, Arbitration, Archery, Arms & Armour, Artillery, Astrology, Astronomy, Athletics, Atlantis, Atomic Theory, Bacteriology, Ballooning, Baths, Beer, Bees, Bells, Big Game, Billiards, Biology, Birds, Blind, Bookkeeping,Botany, Boxing, Bridges, Building, Bull-fighting, Burial, Butterflies, Camel, Canals, Canoeing, Capital & Labour, Cards, Carpentering, Cats, Cattle, Cavalry, Caves, Celibacy, Censorship, Chairman?s Handbooks, Character, Charities, Cheese, Chemistry, Chess, Children, Christmas, Chronograms, Chronology, Cinematography, Circus, Civil Service, Climate Change, Clubs, Coaching, Coal, Coast Erosion, Cocoa, Coffee, Coins, Colour-blindness, Commons Preservation, Computers, Conjuring, Conscience, Co-operative, Copyright, Coronations & Regalia, Corporations, Cotton, Coursing, Cremation, Cricket, Crime, Crosses, Cruelty to Animals, Crystallography, Cycling, Dancing, Deaf, Death, Dentistry, Devil, Distribution,Dogs, Domestic Servants, Dreams, Drink, Drugs, Duelling &c. Please contact us for the full list of subjects. 'The images reproduced in this card index were sourced from the Science & Miscellaneous section of the London Library between November 2021 and May 2022.' (From the Introduction card).
BOLTANSKI, Christian. Touratier, Jean-Marie.
8vo. (190 x 136 mm). Leaf with printed publication collection details, half-title with 'Du Même Auteur' verso, title with justification verso, the 2 leaves with 'préfarce', the following 2 leaves with 'prologue' and all remaining text leaves with rectangular excision, metallic grill mounted within excision after leaf with 'première série des ouvertures' to show a worked sugar lump mounted to rear inner wrapper and imprisoned within. Original publisher's black printed wrappers with abstract decorative patterning by Boltanski, printed title in red and black to front wrapper, title in white to spine. Christian Boltanki's unique appropriated book object / multiple / sculpture featuring a 'sucre taillé . dans un cage en grillage'. From the edition limited to 50 numbered copies, signed in pencil by Boltanski. Boltanski's book object multiple - produced in collaboration with Touratier - features a copy of Touratier's 'Farce' with a fictitious justification referring to Boltanski and all pages after the 'Préfarce' with a small excised section forming a box within the pages of the book. In this box, Boltanski has affixed a shaped section of sugar in the form of a trefoil or vertibra. This segment of sugar is itself imprisoned behind a grille that has been affixed to the first leaf of text proper ('première série des ouvertures'). The justification describes it as follows: ' . comprenant un sucre taillé . dans un cage en grillage . '. 'Special edition of 50 numbered copies including a sugar lump, covered in mesh, set in a cube-shaped hollow cut in the pages of the book, turning it into a 'livre-objet'.' (Bon Calle). [see Calle: 'Contributions to books', pg.126; for other 'Sucres Taillés' see Bob Calle's 'Archives Christian Boltanski 01', Paris, Editions 591, 2000, pp. 95 - 104].
GIACOMETTI, Alberto. Bouchet, André du.
8vo. (206 x 144 mm). Half-title, leaf with Giacometti's signed original etching as frontispiece verso, printed title with justification and copyright verso, section title and du Bouchet's verse in seven sections, leaf with 'Table' and final leaf with achevé d'imprimer and printer's credit verso. Original publisher's printed wrappers with titles and publisher's vignette to front cover and titles to spine in black. An excellent copy of André du Bouchet's verse collection with Giacometti's signed portrait of the poet as frontispiece. From the edition limited to 520 numbered copies with this one of the first 70 on vergé d'Auvergne à la main du moulin Richard-de-Bas with Giacometti's signed original etching as frontispiece. Giacometti's original etching, signed in pencil at lower right, is a portrait of the poet André du Bouchet. Giacometti had provided an etching for du Bouchet's earlier 'Le Moteur Blanc' (GLM, 1956) appearing to show the poet's desk or the floor of a studio covered in canvases. 'Le Moteur Blanc' is also included in this collection together with other verse, some not previously published. 'Dans la Chaleur Vacante' also includes 'Sol de la Montagne', 'Au Deuxième Etage', 'Face de la Chaleur', 'Sur le Pas' and 'Cession'. The collection received the 'Prix de la Critique' in 1961, the year of publication. [Lust 107].
GEFFROY, Gustave.
8 vols. 8vo. (180 x 118 mm). pp. xvi, 375; 396; xx, 395; xviii, 334; 408; 462; 368; 483. Original etched frontispiece to each volume by Carrière, Rodin, Renoir, Raffaelli, Fantin-Latour (lithograph on chine), Pissarro, Vierge, and Willette. Contemporary green cloth-backed marbled boards (vols. 1 - 7), leather labels with gilt titles and volume nos. to spines, original publisher's printed wrappers with titles to front covers in red and black, publisher's advertisements to rear, uncut, vol. 8 in original publisher's printed wrappers as issued. Jean Ajalbert's set presented to him by the author Gustave Geffroy. Geffroy's evocative presentations, evidence for his profound friendship and respect for Ajalbert, differ in each volume (those for the final three are matching) although the sentiments are similar, with the most effusive appearing in the first two vols.: I - 'A mon cher Jean Ajalbert / poète de mon esprit et ami de / mon coeur / Gustave Geffroy'; II - 'A mon cher p'tit, le doux (?) poète / et violent avocat: Jean Ajalbert / de tout mon coeur d'ami / Gustave Geffroy'; The first volume also includes a letter from Geffroy, a bifolium of smooth paper (138 x 108 mm) with Geffroy's manuscript recto and verso to the first leaf, addressed to Ajalbert and his son. Among details such as a desire that Ajalbert visit him when he comes to Paris is news of Geffroy's health ('Ma santé continue à se lézarder. J'entends distinctement les craquements.') and of the death of Eugène Carrière in agony (' . une des plus tristes choses, la plus triste même, la plus sinistre, de ma vie . '). As for the presentations in the volumes, Geffroy ends familiarly and affectionately 'affectueusement à toi et `ton gosse', addressing Ajalbert in his 'Auvergne de neige'. Jean Ajalbert was a poet, author and journalist publishing in the 'Revue Independante', 'La Pleiade', 'L'Humanité' and a major contributor to the Dreyfusard press. The front pastedowns of the volumes feature Ajalbert's circular woodcut bookplate with his initials flanking an image of Mount Fuji and initialled 'MB'. La Vie Artistique was one of the most influential of the late-nineteenth century art periodicals. Geffroy was a friend and one of the earliest supporters of the Impressionists. He was a founding member of the Academie Goncourt and was, in Edmond de Goncourt's words, 'dispensateur d'une culture nouvelle.' He writes about the artists he liked and admired: Manet, Carrière, Rodin, Pissarro, Raffaelli, Whistler, Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes, Sisley, Forain, Cassatt, etc. The testaments he published on Impressionism constitute one of the major sources of the history of art of the period. 'De fait ses comtes rendus d'expositions et ses études d'artistes mettent en valeur avec une étonnante pénetration des talents aussi divers que ceux de Gustave Moreau, de Puvis de Chavannes, de Maurice Denis, de Rude.' (D. B. F.).
DOESBURG, Théo van & Kurt Schwitters.
(300 x 300 mm). Lithograph in red with additional printing in black recto only on thin newsprint paper, the full sheet, never folded; sheet size: 300 x 300 mm. An excellent example, never folded, of the first issue of the iconic 'kleine dada soirée' poster. This programme / poster by Théo van Doesburg and Kurt Schwitters details the events for the travelling show they had devised towards the end of 1922. Their proposed tour of Holland was to start in The Hague in December 1922 but had to be postponed due to problems with Schwitters' passport. On January 10th, 1923, Schwitters and van Doesburg appeared at the Haagsche Kunstkring (the details are at the upper right of the poster together with the address 'Binnenhof 8') and the performance featured van Doesburg's 'dadasofie', 'ragtime-dada' by Erik Satie and Schwitters' sound poetry. The chaotic typography of the poster, in typical dada style, features random capitalisations, variations in typography, the text at variable and peculiar angles, manicules, small vignettes, a quotation from Tristan Tzara etc., all against a background with 'dada' printed in red. 'DADA EXISTE DEPUIS / TOUJOURS LA SAINTE / VIERGE DÉJÀ FUT / DADAÏSTE'. (From the poster). It is thought that Piet Zwart, a member of the Kunstkring attended that first performance, and over the following three months a further 13 performances were held in different cities. The basic form for each event included van Doesburg reading from his booklet 'Wat ist Dada?', Schwitters making animal noises (barking like a dog or cooing like a dove) from the audience before reading his own works, van Doesburg's wife Nelly - she appeared under the stage name 'Pétro' - would play musical selections and the fourth collaborator, Vilmos Huszár, projected on a screen the moving figure of a mechanical dancer. 'We opened in den Haag in Konstruktixistik manner. Doesburg read a very good dadaistic programme, in which he said the dadaist would do something unexpected. At that moment I rose from the middle of the publik and barked loud. Some people fainted, and were carried out, and the Papers reported that Dada means barking.' (Schwitters quoted in Dada and Surrealism Reviewed). A second issue of the poster was produced later with the address at upper right ('Haagsche K[unst]. K[ring]. / Binnenhof 8') replaced with details of a subscription for van Doesburg's 'Mécano': 'Abonnement Mécano 5 Fr. per Jaar'. 'DADA EST CONTRE / LE FUTUR DADA / EST MORT DADA / EST IDIOT, VIVE / DADA! DA / DA N'EST PAS / UNE ÉCOLE LITTÉ / RAIRE HURLE. / TRISTAN TZARA'. (From the poster). 'The poster / program 'Small Dada Evening' is a carefully orchestrated visual cacophony. Information is difficult to discern in this nonhierarchical [sic] composition of red and black lettering distributed pell-mell across the white page. The work was printed in two passes through the press . 'Small Dada Evening' is a tricky piece of graphic design, a playful tease falling somewhere between communication and Dadaist self-subversion. The sheet doubles as a poster advertising the Dada Soirées that toured Holland in 1923 and as a program for the Soirées' proceedings, but even while it claims these dual functions, it undermines them . 'Small Dada Evening' is not a poster in the traditional sense. It may be better understood as a visual emblem of the Dutch Dada tour, a graphic encapsulation of the soirées and of Van Doesburg's and Schwitters' particular brands of Dada.' (Christian Larsen). [see 'Dada in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art', New York, 2008, pp. 102 - 105; see Ades pp. 125 - 126 which describes the series of 'kleine dada soirée' performances (but without naming them) in Schwitters' words].
rot: Witold Wirpsza. (Bense, Max and Elisabeth Walther (Eds.)).
Square 8vo. (152 x 151 mm). Leaf with title and Wirpsza's translated verse in German on doubled leaves throughout as issued, final leaf verso with note on the translation; printed by Hansjörg Mayer. Original publisher's red and white printed wrappers by Walter Faiglewith flaps, title 'rot' to front cover as part of the design, issue number in black, quote by Ernst Bloch to white rear cover in red. An excellent example of this single issue of 'rot' featuring . Wirpsza's verse, taken from the collections 'Drugi Opor, Czytelnik' (Warsaw, 1965) and 'Przesady' (Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warsaw, 1966) was translated from the Polish by Maria Kurecka (1920 - 1989), the writer and translator of English, French and German (she translated Camus' 'La Peste', Hesse's 'Demian' among wother books) who was also Wirpsza's wife.
rot: Max Bense. (Bense, Max and Elisabeth Walther (Eds.)).
Square 8vo. (162 x 148 mm). Leaf with title and Bense's text on doubled leaves as issued with examples of visual poetry by various poets; printed by Hansjörg Mayer. Original publisher's red and white printed wrappers by Walter Faigle with flaps, title 'rot' to front cover as part of the design, issue number in black, quote by Ernst Bloch to white rear cover in red. Max Bill's copy, presented by Max Bense. Bense's presentation is in black ink to the front flap: 'für Mr. Bill / M. Bense'. The poets included are: Helmut Heissenbüttel, Arno Holz, Gertrude Stein, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arno Schmidt, Bense himself, José Lino Grünewald and Fernando Pessoa. Also included, inserted loose, is a leaf with details of previous numbers of the review (nos. 1 - 13) and their contributors and contents.
BROODTHAERS, Marcel.
Small 8vo. (152 x 108 mm). Magic slate of pale green card with metal reinforcement to edges, window cut to front with celluloid panel showing the magic slate, ink inscription verso. Loose as issued in original (?) envelope, later card protective box. A wonderful example of a unique Marcel Broodthaers magic slate: 'L'Ardoise Magique ou La Signature de l'Artiste' with a presentation from the artist. The pale green card backing of the slate is inscribed by Marcel Broodthaers in a darker green ink: '"L'Ardoise Magique, / ou / "La Signature de L'Artiste, / 30 Octobre 72 / A. Françoise Lambert, / MB.' The artist's widow, Maria Gilissen, has stated that Broodthaers' created some 18 different 'magic slates' in various sizes, combinations and formats, however very few examples were inscribed and presented by him. This example features Broodthaers' signature, his initials, multiple times to the re-usable surface as well as to the verso of the card enclosure where the work is titled, dated and presented. Françoise Lambert, to whom the work was presented, was the owner of the eponymous Galleria Françoise Lambert in Milan, where Broodthaers (and others of the so-called 'neo-avant-garde' such as Buren) held a number of exhibitions. Sigmund Freud thought the magic slate or writing slate (in French 'ardoise magique' or 'Wunderblock' in German) analogous to the human system of perception and its links to the unconscious - his 1924 essay 'Notiz über den 'Wunderblock'' outlines his theory - and it seems likely that Broodthaers, like Freud, was intrigued by the magic slate's capacity to retain detail even if that detail has been erased by the action of the slate's 'magic' and is no longer visible. 'L'ardoise magique repose sur le principe suivant : toute inscription est effacée simplement en tirant sur la plaquette médiane. Elle reste cependant gravée, invisible,sur une pellicule à l'intérieur de l'appareil. / Die Schreibtafel beruht auf dem folgenden Prinzip : jede Beschriftung wird durch einfachen Herauszichen der Tafel ausgelöscht. Sie bleibe über unsichtbar auf einen Film in Innern der Vorrichtung graviert. / The writing slate is based on the following principle : each inscription can be wiped off just by pulling out the plate. Yet it remains invisibly engraved on a film inside the device.' (From Marcel Broodthaers' 'Magie'). ' . this is precisely the way in which, according to the hypothesis I mentioned just now, our mental apparatus performs its perceptual function. The layer which receives the stimuli - the Pcpt.-Cs. [Perception-Consciousness] - forms no permanent traces; the foundations of memory come about in other, adjoining, systems . I do not think it is too far-fetched to compare the celluloid and waxed paper cover with the system 'Pcpt.-Cs.' and its protective shield, the wax slab with the unconscious behind them, and the appearance and disappearance of the writing with the flickering-up and passing-away of consciousness in the process of perception.' (Sigmund Freud translated by James Strachey).
